


Fingers Traced in Circles

by PompousPickle



Category: Kamen Rider Build
Genre: Angst, Banjou does not into feelings, Character Death Mentioned, Gen, PTSD, Spoilers for episode 21, cuddle piles, gen but can easily be read as OT3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-09
Updated: 2018-02-09
Packaged: 2019-03-15 22:33:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13622871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PompousPickle/pseuds/PompousPickle
Summary: It had been two days, and Sento hadn't spoken a word.[Spoilers for episode 21. Banjou PoV for the week that occurred during that episode]





	Fingers Traced in Circles

The second time Ryuga visited Kasumi’s grave, it was two days after Aoba had died. He wasn’t exactly sure why he did it, really. He didn’t want to pray to her. He didn’t want to ask her for forgiveness. It was just that holding her bottle to his heart wasn’t enough at the moment. He supposed that seeing her name etched in stone would give him some peace, somehow. That she would lend him some guidance, some reassurance.

He only wore a coat and a baseball cap to hide his identity. It was hardly needed, in the war-torn remains of Touto. No one was outside. The grass was withering, the day was cold and the air was silent, save for the steady hum of air-raid sirens in the distance. He was lucky that the family gravesite hadn’t been torn apart in the invasion, and that her grave had remained untouched.

He ran his fingers over Kasumi’s name, feeling the indentures in the cold gray stone. He traced over every line, as if he could still feel her fingers laced inside of his. With every dip and rise of the kanji, he thought about her. He thought about life. He thought about death. He thought about Sento, sitting lifeless in the basement of Nascita.

The last time he was here, Banjou had been so lost. He didn’t even realize it at the time. Sento had left a letter here for him to find, and he’ll never know if it was written by Kasumi’s hand or by the scientist’s. The further away it became, the less it seemed to matter. All that mattered was that Sento had smiled at him that day. And when he gripped that dragon bottle in his palm, he thought maybe Kasumi was smiling too.

Banjou removed his hand from the stone, realizing all at once that he was terrified that he had lost both smiles forever. He dug for the dragon jelly in his pocket. He squeezed at it, closing his eyes for a moment, as though trying to feel a pulse through the cold glass. “I’m sorry,” he finally. To a hunk of stone that couldn’t hear him, to an empty world that he couldn’t fix, to a near-catatonic man sitting in the basement of an empty café.

He wanted to punch something. He wanted to _break_ something. Someone. Fight. He wanted to fight. It itched under his skin, crawling through his veins like a thousand insects, pushing at his brain like a desperate impulse. He felt the dragon jelly grow warm, thrumming under the heat of battle.

He thought of what Sawatari said to him.

_“You live for the fight, just like me.”_

There was no one on the streets of Touto. No one in the parks, the schools, or the karaoke bar he took Misora to. There was nothing but the sound of sirens, and the quiet march of Hokuto soldiers, still looking for the remainder of Touto’s bottles.

Everything seemed to have stopped, for both him and Sento. Everything in their lives had come to a horrible screeching halt. But the war kept raging on. He gripped the bottle harder, before shoving it back into his pocket. “I’m going, Kasumi,” he finally said, resolutely.

“I’m going.”

\----

Sento hadn’t moved from his corner since Banjou left that afternoon. Misora was sitting on the side of her bed, eating chicken and rice and staring at the wall, kicking her feet back and forth gently while the news prattled on in the background. She grabbed some chicken off her plate and shoved it into Sento’s face as he sat on the floor, staring up at the ceiling. She didn’t even look at Banjou as he entered the basement.

“Did you go out fighting?” She asked, shoving the chicken a little closer to the scientist. Sento grabbed it from her chopsticks silently, chewing on it listlessly. He looked over at Banjou, eyebrows raised but expression unreadable. He hadn’t slept the night before, or the night before that. He stared at Banjou, awaiting his answer, his face sallow and the circles under his eyes growing darker and baggier by the hour.

Banjou froze in his steps as he made his way to the bedroom area, unsure of what to say. He looked over at Misora, who was also staring at him expectantly. He wanted to reassure them that he had not been, that he couldn’t find the heart to fight, despite his body _begging_ him to. Despite every drop of blood in his veins thirsting for more and more adrenaline. He wanted to tell them that it was okay, that he didn’t want to hurt them any more than he was forced to.

Instead, he just sniffed and stormed into the area, tossing a bag of convenience store food onto the end table. There was nothing good about war. There was nothing good about any of this. But at least he could walk into a local Lawson’s without being arrested on the spot. “So what if I did?” he spat back at the girl. “We aren’t going to stop this by shaking hands with Hokuto.”

Misora rolled her eyes and collapsed onto her bed, laying on her back and letting out a long sigh. Sento similarly leaned back against the wall, rolling his head back before glancing back at the man. “Liar,” Misora finally said, taking a pillow and throwing it at Banjou, hitting him square in the face with her usual startling accuracy.

Banjou struggled for a moment to grab the pillow, fumbling at it as he tried to maintain his balance. Normally he would bite back with protest. Normally he would throw the pillow back and storm off to go do pushups in a corner. Normally Sento would say something.

Normally…

Sento only snorted out what could have been a laugh, completely devoid of humor. Ryuga rolled his eyes, walking over to the corner before holding the pillow out for Sento to take. When he didn’t, Ryuga grunted and tossed the pillow down at him. “And you call me the idiot.” The scientist shot a glare at him. It wasn’t a lot, but it was something. More than he had gotten in the past two days.

Sawa had made up a bed of sorts in that corner, after Sento had taken to sitting in it, muttering to himself endlessly. She insisted on padding it with pillows and blankets, smiling gently even when he ignored all of her attempts at comforting him. She was the only one who ever seemed to know what to do in situations like this. And tonight she wasn’t there.

The sun was now falling, and Banjou was growing tired. The basement was cold and Sento’s nest of blankets was beginning to look very warm. Perhaps not as warm as under the kotatsu where he normally slept, but the more he stared at the small corner of the room, the more inviting it looked. And as he chewed his way through a cheap convenience store onigiri, the more tired he felt. His eyes beginning to feel heavier and heavier with the weight of the day. The weight of trying to comprehend it all.

The corner wasn’t much. Just a small rectangle stuffed with a few pillows and blankets, littered with a couple empty cups of ramen noodles. Sent was running his hands carelessly through his hair, still looking warily at Banjou. It was not out of mistrust, however. It wasn’t anger or sadness or desperation or pity. It was something else.  Something Banjou couldn’t name. He was never good with this kind of thing. He could never name his own feelings, much less the feelings of a man who had gone through so much. Seen so much.

Done so much.

Banjou kicked over a few pillows and gave a halfhearted, “Move over,” before bulldozing his way into Sento’s little nest. Sento didn’t budge, forcing Banjou to shove his way in, nestling himself down next to the other man and finishing off his paltry dinner.

Misora perked up her head and grunted, her eyes narrowed in both irritation and distrust. “What the heck are you doing?”

Banjou just shrugged and looked back up at her. “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m going to sleep.” He waved her off, collapsing next to Sento onto a small pile of blankets. He slammed his eyes shut, praying for sleep to come. He didn’t have to see to know that Misora was rolling her eyes, smiling ever-so-slightly as she called him a moron under her breath.

It was the first time in three days that Banjou felt like things were going to be okay.

\----

Sleep came and went in the matter of minutes. He glanced down at his phone to realize that barely an hour had passed since he tried to fall asleep. He shifted upwards, propping himself up on his elbows and glanced over at Sento in the darkness. The man wasn’t asleep, but he was closer to it than Banjou had seen since Aoba died. He was still sitting there, leaning against Banjou, the skin of their arms pressed together, and he had his hand around Banjou’s wrist, tightening and loosening at random intervals. Banjou wondered if that’s what had woken him up, or if it was simply how empty everything around him felt.

“I failed, Sento,” Banjou finally confessed, Sento’s eyes staring off into the distance, half-lidded and dazed with a distinct lack of sleep. “I said I’d end this war. But all I did was…make things worse.” He huffed bitterly, not even sure Sento was even listening. “But I’m still going to try to end it. I have to try.”

_For you_.

He couldn’t bring himself to add that, but it was there, hanging in the small space between them.

Sento tightened his grip around Banjou’s wrist, and Banjou felt his heart tighten with it. He jerked his hand out of Sento’s grip, unsure of what to do; a part of his brain was screaming for him to escape this, this quiet, comfortable intimacy. But a part of him craved it. And he could never be sure what Sento was thinking at any given time- their brains ran at such incredibly different speeds- but he felt that maybe Sento needed it too, right now.

He wrapped his arm around the man’s shoulders, bringing him a little closer. He looked up at the ceiling, pointedly away from the man. His partner. His _friend_. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter. Go to sleep.” He spat quietly, but there was no venom left in his voice.

Sento laughed, once again with no smile on his face. But despite of that, his eyes still drifted shut. Satisfied at least for the time being, Banjou decided to close his eyes again as well.

\----

When he opened them again, another 45 minutes had passed and his head was pounding from the pressure of being propped against the wall. He looked down to his right, where Sento had nestled himself into Banjou’s side, eyes slammed shut and face twisted into a grimace. Whatever the man was dreaming about, it wasn’t pleasant. But it was still likely better than the nightmares Sento’s mind forced him to relive while he was awake.

Reflexively, Ryuga reached over and traced his fingers over the scientist’s face. He ran his hand across his cheek bones, around his eyes, down his chin, across his lips. He tried to feel the crevices of his experiences, to see if he could feel the tracks of his tears, the bags under his eyes, the chapped skin of his lips. He traced his face like he traced the letters on Kasumi’s grave, lost and wandering, searching for an answer.

But the only answer he could come up with was more fighting. It’s all Banjou ever did; all he could ever do. He had to fight. For Kasumi. For Misora. For Sento.

Sento’s hand balled into a fist, gripping onto the fabric of Banjou’s shirt. This time, Banjou was the one to laugh bitterly. Right. Because fighting had done him so well in the past. He could almost hear Sento’s voice berating him.

He longed to hear it again.

Something brushed through Banjou’s hair, causing him to jump in his place. He glanced up to see Misora’s hand, hanging off the side of the bed. He could not tell in the darkness, but he swore he saw her eyes open ever-so-slightly, perhaps just to check on the two of them.

Banjou looked up at her and her eyes slipped shut again, but her hand didn’t move. Almost instinctually, he grabbed onto it. He expected her to yank it away in shock and disgust. Instead, her grip tightened slightly, wrapping her hand around his.

All at once the man had the overwhelming urge to yank her down with him, to sandwich her between the him and Sento. He couldn’t but words to it, but it’s all he really wanted: to have all three of them in that tiny cramped corner together, piled on top of each other and trying to get some sleep. At least until the sun rose and they’d have to do this all again. Fight, survive, and wait in vain for the Prime Minister to struggle to end this war.  

But the corner was too small, and Banjou didn’t want to risk waking Sento from his already-fitful sleep. Not to mention how angry Misora would be if he even dared to try to separate her from her bed. Instead, he just linked his fingers into hers, eyes growing slightly in surprise as she intertwined her fingers back.

After a few minutes, his muscles began to ache from holding his arm up. His other arm was falling asleep from having Sento’s weight on it, still gripping onto his shirt for dear life. But somehow, it all felt comfortable. His eyes began to feel heavy again. It felt different than it did a few hours ago though. It wasn’t an exhaustion born of resignation, born of the inevitability of death. No, this time it felt like safety. Like family. Like he had something left to fight for.  

And like he had someone to remember him when he died.

Sento stirred into his side, rubbing his face slightly against Banjou’s chest. Banjou shifted around, looking at the physicist as he stirred into a half-awake state. And for the first time in two days, Sento spoke, his voice raw and hushed in the dead of the night.

“This is terrible, isn’t it?”

**Author's Note:**

> Hello yes I'm new to Toku Hell but I have a lot of feelings.


End file.
